The Guardian and the Secret Wish
by cosplaywriter
Summary: When Ezekiel gets into a bit of trouble with a genie, it falls to Eve to save the day (on her day off). An Eviarty fanfic.


Eve walked into her apartment two days after she and Flynn had been freed from their statue cocoon. Two long days of paperwork and Flynn lost in his own world trying to help Excalibur remember the future he hadn't yet lived. Trying to figure that one out made Eve's head hurt. She sorted through her mail and found a slip for a package delivery, telling her the package was with the management office for pickup at her convenience. Funny what being frozen in time for four hundred years and then retrieved after two weeks since you left your own time would do to your mail pile. Half of the over-large stack was junk, political scammers trying to get her vote and her money, or bills. The other half was magazines she never subscribed to and catalogs she never signed up for.

Checking her watch, she saw she had just a few minutes to get down to the office and collect her package before they closed for the night. She grabbed her key and raced out the door down to the main building of the large complex she lived in when she wasn't headed through the back door at the Annex on her next mission. The woman in the office smiled when she walked in.

"How are you tonight?" she asked Eve.

"Pretty good. You?"

"Well, thank you. How can I help you?"

Eve produced the package note. "Picking up a package."

"Great. I'll be right back." The woman took the slip from Eve and headed to a room in the back corner. Eve saw quite a few packages of odd shapes and sizes inside it. The woman rummaged around and produced a small box that bore no identifying features as to where it had come from. These days Eve tended to do her shopping via Annex back door rather than online so packages wouldn't pile up if the clippings book called her away suddenly.

"I wonder why the mailman left it here and not in your box," the woman said as she returned. "It's certainly small enough."

"I was hospitalized and couldn't get a hold put on my mail so it built up in the box."

"Oh my. Well I hope you're doing better now. Here you go." The woman smiled a thin smile at Eve to show sympathy for the hospitalization.

Eve rationalized to herself that it was only a small stretch of the truth. She had been out of communication reach. She just figured Jenkins or Stone would have figured out a way to take care of her mail in case they weren't able to find the statue room sooner than later.

"Night," Eve said as she turned to leave the main office. She inspected the package. A very tidy cursive script adorned the mailing label. There was no return address or even a name indicating who had sent it. Years of training kicked in and Eve held the package carefully.

Back in her apartment she pulled out a portable explosives detection kit. She swabbed the edges of the box, the label, and for good measure the back of the box. After a few minutes, the test papers told her there was no trace presence of any explosive material. She opened the box to find a copy of The Adventure of the Final Problem by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

"Very funny, Flynn." She stuck it on the coffee table next to the pile of magazines from earlier and tossed the packaging into the recycle bin. She wondered briefly who he hired to do the calligraphy on the mailing label since it was clearly not his handwriting. Only he would find it funny to send her a copy of the only Sherlock Holmes story in which Moriarty appeared. She still hadn't gotten him to tell her what happened to Moriarty that day in 1611.

Two months later, Flynn had run off to parts unknown again, insisting he didn't need her, leaving Eve behind at the Library to accompany the others on their missions, should they want or need her help. So it was she found herself wandering the halls of the Library one afternoon when the lights overhead flickered on and off and on and off, chasing each other down the hall like a string of annoying Christmas lights.

"Jenkins," she called before remembering it was his day off and he had disappeared to a remote corner of the Library he assured everyone was soundproof and unmappable, thus ensuring he could not be disturbed.

Stone and Cassandra had both been summoned to Wellington to investigate kraken sightings. Jenkins assured them the real kraken was currently in the menagerie wing of the Library so it could not possibly be a kraken. Still, Cassandra had been apprehensive about going until Stone's clippings book popped with the same set of news stories.

Jones was probably off trying to break into the Bode Museum or some equally illegal activity. That left her to investigate the blinking lights and fix whatever had misfired this time. She set off down the hall, following the lights as they ran away from her.

She followed the lights through several corridors until she found herself in the actual reading room of the Library. Stacked floor to ceiling on ancient shelves were books and manuscripts from the early days of writing to the present day. Delicate scrolls and gorgeously illuminated manuscripts stood alongside leather-bound works by authors long-forgotten by history, mostly because they were women.

The lights stopped flickering when she entered the room. Looking behind her, she saw they had returned to normal in the hallway as well. Another of Ray's hiccups as he settled back into the atoms of the Library. Eve shrugged and left the reading room for the comfort of her desk and the endless amounts of paperwork Charlene and Jenkins both demanded of the Librarians.

For three days, the lights did the same thing, chasing each other until she followed them to the reading room and then settling into normalcy. Jenkins agreed with her that it was just the Library continuing to return to its proper state and organization. Stone and Cassandra still were not back from Wellington. Jones had called asking Eve to bail him out of a South African jail. She had flatly refused, feeling he needed to sit on his heels for a while. Though she was certain he'd managed to escape by now.

After five days of the Library leading her on a wild goose chase that always ended in the reading room, Eve decided she needed a day off. She left the annex at midday, turning her cell off entirely as she walked through the physical door and into the Oregon springtime air. It had rained in the morning, leaving the thick, heady scent of petrichor on the air. Eve relished the clean aroma of the earth after a rainstorm as she walked toward town and the one bedroom apartment she kept there.

She passed a bookstore on her way. Through the window a large display of Sherlock Holmes related books and other items occupied a table. After a lot of cajoling, she'd gotten Flynn to tell her what happened to Moriarty before she emerged from the pond completely dry and holding Excalibur above her head.

Still, she wasn't certain he'd told her everything about the moment Prospero tried to unwrite Moriarty.

Moving on from the bookstore, Eve stopped at the local coffee house and ordered her favorite tea blend. Months of Jenkins serving tea nonstop had finally converted her from coffee. He had one blend she liked, but she'd found one here in town that was even better.

"If you come back next week, we'll be selling the blend for home brewing," the barista told her as she paid for her drink.

"I'll be here," Eve said, returning the barista's smile.

Finally back at her apartment, she kicked off her shoes and dropped her keys and raincoat on the hall table. She made her way down the hall to the bedroom and changed into her favorite pair of pajamas. Cassandra had found them during one of her missions and bought them, knowing they were perfect for Eve. The fabric had been printed with different firearms. Even couldn't help but laugh and thank her friend for the gift. They were silk and the most comfortable thing she'd ever worn.

She lay down on the couch, tea in one hand and the television remote in the other. Scrolling through the channels she found the modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes on. The network was airing the episode where Holmes and Moriarty have their final face off on the rooftop in London.

"You, sir, are no Moriarty," she whispered as she watched the scene unfold. She had nothing against the modern day adaptation. It was quite good in its own right. But no Moriarty would stand up to the fictional man made real who gave that up to help stop Prospero.

Eve slammed her finger into the power button on the remote, turning off the television with more force than necessary.

There was something about that day in 1611 that Flynn never told her. Sure, he'd eventually told her how Moriarty had revealed himself to Prospero as being in league with Flynn and Eve and how Prospero had stabbed him through with the staff of power. But Flynn had hemmed and hawed through the whole tale which told Eve there was something he didn't want her to know.

Rain began to fall again outside as Eve's eyes alighted on the copy of Sherlock Holmes that Flynn had sent her all those months ago. Of course he'd denied sending it when she asked him about it. And denied he would ever hire a calligrapher rather than take the time to address the mailing slip himself.

She picked up the book and ran her finger over the cover. Leatherbound with the title and author embossed in silver gilt lettering on the front. It felt nice in her hands. And heavy, despite the slim nature of the single story volume. The rain fell harder as she opened the book to the title page, skipping over the blank pages at the beginning. She read the title in a whisper this time. Then turned to the first page.

A clap of thunder jolted her awake. She checked the clock to find she'd slept for half an hour. Her phone buzzed on the hall table. Standing, she shook out the pants of her pajamas and strode over to the cluttered table.

"Grdn ndd. Back dr rdy."

"Jones," Eve muttered. Only he would have the gall to text her in such clipped fashion. Cassie and Stone both tended to use full sentences and proper punctuation. She navigated to the dial pad on her phone and pulled up the Annex number.

"Jenkins, quick question."

"Yes, Colonel?"

"Am I really needed to help Jones or did he just drunk text me again?"

"Mr. Jones? I haven't the earthliest idea, Colonel. But the back door is dialed in to Ankara. And it does appear to have activated on its own."

"Turkey. Of course he's in the Middle East somewhere."

She walked down the hall as she talked. "Thanks, Jenkins. Keep the door active. I'll be back at the Annex in twenty."

Eve shed her pajamas in favor of more practical clothes for rushing off to dig Jones out of whatever mess he'd buried himself in. She paused at the closet, looking at her scarves. Turkey, while more modern and secular, still held some traditional Islamic ideas of dress. Her sleeves were too short, so she changed to a long-sleeved plaid shirt, tucking it into her pants for practicality. She grabbed a coordinating scarf just in case she had to follow Jones into a mosque. For now, she tied it loosely around her neck and pulled her hair into a low ponytail.

Twenty minutes later she walked in through the Annex's main door. Jenkins was nowhere to be seen but the back door still glowed blue. She sighed and stepped through the door to find herself in the middle of nowhere.

"Jones!"

A raspy laugh, hollow with an echo as though a thousand other voices were laughing at the same time, met her ears.

"Colonel," came Jones' muffled reply. She assumed it was him though she could barely make out his voice let alone any words he spoke. The laughter continued. She followed the noise down a corridor caked in layers of dirt. Footprints, fresh ones at that, preceded her along the hall. She tried to discern where she might be. Intricate mosaics adorned the walls beneath the years of dirt and dust. If it were a mosque, it wasn't currently used or even maintained.

To be safe, she pulled the scarf up over her hair and tied it around her neck so it wouldn't slip. Her years in NATO had taught her better protocol than even Jenkins could handle with his courtly manners.

She turned a corner and found herself staring at the back of a very shirtless man. Dark skin and even darker hair that fell below his shoulder blades. A pedestal stood in front of him and atop it sat one of those old fashioned oil lamps her childhood Bible study teachers would use to illustrate the parable of the ten virgins.

Eve drew her gun. "Jones?"

His muffled voice called out again. The man standing in the room turned to face her. Her breath caught in her throat before the man's face resolved itself in her vision and she realized it wasn't Moriarty standing there.

"You seek the one who freed me."

"Freed–" Eve glanced at the man then at the oil lamp on the pedestal. It all clicked into place in her head.

"One moment."

She turned back to the corridor and retreated out of sight of the man and the lamp. The back door still glowed where she'd come to Turkey from the Annex. Glancing back toward the room she'd left, she hurried through back to the Annex.

Jenkins stood at the oblong work table this time.

"Oh, Colonel. Sorted out whatever trouble Mr. Jones has put himself into already, have you?"

"Quick question," Eve said in reply. "Are genies real? And were they ever known to be in Turkey?"

"That is two questions, Colonel," Jenkins said with a tiny exasperated sigh. "But, yes and yes. Don't tell me. Mr. Jones has found a genie's lamp and is currently making three wishes."

"Yes and no." She showed Jenkins the picture of the room she'd managed to snap when the genie turned around before. Right before she had turned and left the room.

"Oh dear," Jenkins said.

"Oh dear? What did Jones do?"

"That, Colonel, is one of the genies from the Arabian Nights tales. I believe you have encountered Kavadh. He was the first genie any Librarian encountered in the Sassanid empire. Very crafty. Once, so the stories passed down by Librarians go, he tricked a man into wishing him free of his lamp. They were trying to stop a famine and blamed him for it. The man believed he would strip Kavadh of his powers, thus ending the famine, if he freed him of the lamp. It only led to a worse disaster."

"Cheerful. So Jones probably fell for it and wished him free of the lamp. How do I get him back in the lamp and find Jones?"

"If Mr. Jones did, in fact, free Kavadh, the lamp likely took Jones prisoner. Thankfully, a clever Librarian operating in the late thirteen-hundreds found a spell which limited Kavadh's lamp to only being able to house Kavadh. Eventually it will spit out Mr. Jones just as he was when entering the lamp."

"And what about Kavadh?"

"Ah, that is where it gets sticky. You see, the spell makes it so only Kavadh as a genie can be in that lamp. Kavadh as a human, with unlimited magical powers, is not tied down. If you can get back to that room and make three wishes before the sun rises, he may still be bound to obey them. Your third wish must be worded in such a way as to turn him back to his genie form before he realizes what he has done."

"Got it. Good chat, Jenkins."

Eve stepped through the back door, already formulating her three wishes.

When she returned to the room housing the lamp, Kavadh still stood there staring at it. His skin looked less translucent now, more real. Unlike Moriarty, whose skin had always retained a papery look, except during the three weeks they were under Prospero's happily ever after spell.

Eve shook herself out of the memories of those three weeks. They weren't real. This was real. She watched as the lamp shook violently atop its pedestal.

Ezekiel came oozing out the lamp's spout. When he'd regained his full form, she noticed he looked as translucent and papery as Moriarty did.

"Impossible," Kavadh muttered.

"Possible," Eve said.

"Colonel!"

"Jones." Eve went to stand at his side. She picked up the lamp.

"Wouldn't it be nice if I had a real genie to grant me some wishes," she said as she casually rubbed the lamp.

"You know, Colonel, that lamp had me in it. That makes me a real genie."

"No it doesn't. But I know if I had a real genie, well, I wouldn't ask for world peace." She arched an eyebrow at Kavadh.

"Speak, mortal. I will hear the desires of your heart," Kavadh said. "Though whether I choose to grant them will be for me to decide."

"Three wishes. One. I wish my boyfriend didn't act like he doesn't exist when it suits him."

Kavadh laughed. "I see in your heart. I grant your wish. This boyfriend will be as real as the man beside you was ere he freed me."

"Two. I wish my friends to be safe and healthy."

Kavadh sobered. "I see in your heart. The one with red hair shall live a full and prosperous life with no threat from the disease haunting her."

Eve's heart skipped a beat and she glanced at Jones. Cassandra free of the tumor? Could it be so easy?

"Three. I wish for the Librarian's dying wish in the midst of the sandstorm to not be in vain."

The lamp in her hands shuddered. The air in the room swirled around Kavadh and pulled at his skin. Eve watched as he grew transparent again.

"No," Kavadh screamed. She dared look at Jones who was looking more and more corporeal with every passing moment. The winds blew harder and dragged on Kavadh more fervently.

"Yes, Kavadh. I wished for the Librarian's spell he cast with his last breath to take hold again. You're gonna be bound to this lamp for a thousand more lifetimes. Why do you think the lamp spit out Jones? It can't hold anyone but you."

The genie's scream cut off as he was sucked fully back into the lamp.

"Thanks, Colonel."

"Sure."

They walked through the back door together into the Annex.

"Ah, Colonel. And Mr. Jones." Jenkins took the lamp from Eve and left to go catalogue it. Eve programmed the back door to take her to her apartment.

"Try to stay out of trouble for at least a day," Eve said to Ezekiel before leaving the Annex.

When she walked through the bathroom door back into the hall a creak in the living room made her stop. She drew her gun and crept down the hallway.

Turning the corner, a figure stood silhouetted against the living room window. He had his back to her.

"Hello, Duchess," he said as he turned.

Her breath caught in her throat. As sure as she had a pulse, Moriarty stood there in her living room. She lowered the gun.

"No fond greeting for me?" he asked, with his signature smirk.

Then Eve noticed the clothes he wore. Not the Victorian suit and ascot he appeared in most times he'd stepped off the pages of his book, but the gray suit he'd worn the day they'd met at the museum, before she knew his true name. Well, true last name.

"Hello, Villain."

He laughed. "Ever dramatic, Colonel."

"So who brought you out of your book this time?" Eve asked, setting her gun on the table and unbuttoning her coat.

When she turned to take it off and hang it, he stepped up behind her and helped her slide it off her shoulders.

"I'm not certain. I was hoping you could help me deduce who might be behind my appearance."

She watched as he hung her coat in the closet for her, right beside his own gray overcoat.

Turning, she narrowed her eyes at him. "Someone cast a spell to pull you out of the pages of your book but you don't know who? Where'd you appear this time?"

She knew enough about his last sojourn in this world to know that Prospero had summoned him inside the New York Public Library and then installed him at the museum to set up the exhibit.

"In this very room," he said. "Tea?"

"Yes, thanks." Eve sat on the barstool in her kitchen as she watched Moriarty make his way around with ease, pouring hot water over the tea leaves she didn't know she had.

"Wait. You materialized here? In my apartment?"

"I didn't know it was your flat at first. But a look around allowed me to deduce several key things. First, that a woman lived here alone. Second, that woman spent very little time at home. Third, she was an efficient woman. One who kept everything she might need ready at hand for any purpose. Fourth, that she worked very hard and for very little reward. When I heard you stumble in through the lavatory door, I deduced I had come upon your flat."

He handed her a cup and saucer.

Some things were starting to make sense. "How long before I got home had you been here?"

"Not long at all. By the clock hanging on the wall, I'd say a quarter of an hour."

"This boyfriend will be as real as the man beside you," Eve muttered. Crafty genie indeed.

"Sorry?" Moriarty said.

"Nothing. Well, whoever conjured you had a reason. What sort of compulsions are you feeling? Murder? Mayhem? World domination?"

Moriarty laughed. "Precisely none of those. I think whoever conjured me had no evil intention this time."

No, she didn't.

"Well, until we figure it out, you'll need a place to stay. I don't imagine you can go back inside the pages of your book, if your skin is any indication."

Did I say that out loud?

Moriarty looked down at his hands. "My skin?"

"Uh. Your skin doesn't look papery like it did before."

"Why, Duchess, I didn't know you cared." His crooked smile, the genuine smile from the three weeks of the fake happily ever after, appeared on his lips. Eve felt the heat in her cheeks.

"Thank you," she said, trying to change the subject.

"Whatever for, Colonel?" he asked.

"For that day, in 1611. Flynn told me you used your last breath to tell him about the staff of power. I never got to thank you for your help in defeating him."

"It was my genuine pleasure, Colonel."

Eve smiled. "But there's something Flynn won't tell me about that day. Something about how you left."

Moriarty laughed. "I don't suppose that he would tell you he had an actual human moment, watching me be unmade after being stabbed through the heart with Prospero's staff. Watching helpless as a man dissolves into ink and nothingness, only able to say, 'Don't worry. This isn't how your story ends', isn't something one willingly shares. I told him to rewrite the story. He took me at my word and only shared what made him look noble."

"He showed compassion and he didn't like it. That's not like Flynn. But I'm not surprised he wouldn't share that part of the story. He hated you."

"And I envied him. Living his life, free to act his own will and not answer to another, free to love as he would."

Eve looked at his hands cradling his own teacup. "We'll find who summoned you and find a way to free you so you're not bound to someone else."

Moriarty shook his head. "The longer I stand here, the less I feel bound by someone else's pen."

"I think I know who brought you here. And why you appeared here in my apartment."

She went to the living room and picked up the copy of The Adventure of the Final Problem that she'd never read.

Back in the kitchen she handed him the book. His eyes narrowed as he looked at it then he flipped through the pages until he got to the first time he appears on the page. He smiled. "It did arrive."

"You sent this?"

He turned the book around and showed her the page. Written in the margin beside his entrance to the story were two words. "Hello, Duchess."

"I felt you should have it. It was a last remnant of Prospero's spell, the book. After you broke the spell and got your real happily ever after, I couldn't bear to have it around. I wrote this there so you would know it was from me. I didn't plan on it arriving after I'd been sent back to my book for good."

She ran her finger over the two words. "I hate when you call me that."

"I know. Your eyes sparkle when you're vexed in a way they don't any other time. Except when you looked at me under Prospero's spell."

Their hands lay incredibly close to each other. Eve stared at them, unsure of how to respond.

"But I deduce," Moriarty said, trying to lighten the mood, "that you have had a spectacularly bizarre day and need to talk my ear off about it."

This made Eve laugh. "Spectacularly bizarre. That's one way to put it."

"By your appearance, I deduce you were in a country that is hot and dusty. You've had your hair covered by something, perhaps the scarf now tied around your neck. And by the exasperated sigh you gave when I mentioned the bizarre day that it has to do with one of your compatriots, but not Mr. Carsen."

"Correct on all counts."

"And am I to deduce that the events which took you out of this country might also have to do with who summoned me out of the pages of my book?"

Eve nodded as he came around the kitchen island to stand beside her. "And am I to deduce that these events somehow led to you being the one to summon me?"

Their eyes met and she nodded again.

"May I deduce that, given your sudden mutism, you wanted to summon me?"

"I didn't summon you specifically. Technically, the genie summoned you. I just made a wish and you're the interpretation."

"A wish?" Moriarty whispered, now so close to her she could feel the heat coming off him.

"That's new," she said, breaking the moment.

"What is?" he asked, pulling a step back.

"Heat. Do you know, I don't think this is like when Prospero summoned you. I think you're a real person this time."

He looked down at his hands. "A real person?"

"One way to find out." Eve flicked a knife across the back of his hand, just lightly enough to make a shallow cut.

"Ow."

She grabbed his hand and squeezed the skin. Blood, not ink, oozed out of the cut.

Looking down, he smiled. "I bleed."

"Flynn said you dissolved into a cloud of black ink when Prospero stabbed you in the gut. You're a human this time, not a fictional."

Moriarty locked his fingers with hers. She stared at their entwined hands as the silence grew around them. "Tell me your wish."

Still staring at their hands, Eve told him what she'd said to Kavadh and what he'd said in fulfilling the wish.

"I'm not familiar with this term, 'boyfriend', Colonel. Perhaps you'd care to enlighten me?" he teased.

When she didn't look up, he tilted to the left until his face became level with hers and she had no choice but to look him in the eye.

His gaze dropped to her lips and he pulled her closer. He paused and Eve leaned in, closing the gap. Their lips met gently at first. When they broke apart, he was smiling.

"Well, Villain, I think you just became the hero because only heroes get the girl."

Moriarty laughed then pulled her close again.


End file.
